The judge trying 11 men for the killing of the Arise News Television journalist Somtochukwu Maduagwu and the security guard Barnabas Danlami has watched a police video recording of the men’s interrogation, after admitting it in evidence.
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Hon. Justice Mohammed Idris, of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory sitting at Jabi, Abuja, viewed the recording on a laptop in court, surrounded by prosecution and defence counsel, while the rest of the courtroom listened to the audio.
About twenty minutes of the recording were played, showing two of the defendants giving oral statements in turn, before counsel asked for the playback to be discontinued.
The recording was tendered by the prosecutor, Adama Musa, through Douglas Ishaku, an Assistant Superintendent of Police and the fourth prosecution witness.
Mr. Ishaku told the court that he recorded the suspects’ confessional statements, that he put his questions to them in Hausa and translated those questions into English, and that he also translated the suspects’ Hausa answers into English.
The judge admitted the recording as an exhibit and granted the prosecution’s application to play it.
The following is an account of what the court was shown. It is not a finding of the court and the defendants have pleaded not guilty.
In the played portion, the first defendant, Shamsu Hassan, was recorded confirming that he was aware he was being investigated for armed robbery. He named others he said were at the scene, including Sani, Abba, Kabari, said to be at large, and Nura, and said knives and guns were used.
He was recorded as confirming that he shot the security guard at the house when the guard tried to overpower one of the group, and as saying he was not aware that the guard later died. He was recorded as saying that a lady jumped down from the building as a result of the gunshot.
He was further recorded as saying that items including a car were taken, and that his own share of the proceeds was N200,000.
The second defendant, Sani Sirajo, was recorded as confirming that he drove the vehicle that carried the group to Unique Apartments. He said a co-defendant provided the car, which he collected at Area 1 in Abuja, that he fuelled it, drove to Sauka to pick up Abba, then to Madalla for Kabari and Hassan, and picked up Isah and Nura at Kubwa.
He was recorded as saying that Kabari gave him the directions to the location in Katampe; that Hassan and Kabari carried guns, Isah and Nura carried machetes and Abba carried a knife; and that on arrival he parked the car and was watching when he heard a gunshot.
At that point counsel for the 11 defendants agreed that they had seen enough, and the prosecution closed the witness’s examination in chief.
Four counsel, appearing for the first to sixth defendants, cross-examined Mr. Ishaku on the procedure followed in taking the statements.
A. B. Samson, for the first defendant, asked on what dates the written statements and the video recorded statements were taken. The witness said he could not recall.
Put to him in questions directed at the safeguards in the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, the witness confirmed that neither lawyers nor relatives of the suspects were present when the statements were recorded.
The witness also confirmed that the robbery victims could not identify the defendants.
William Otabor, for the second defendant, took the witness to evidence he had given in September, that the second defendant was arrested at a hospital at Gosa-Toge in Abuja where he was receiving treatment. The witness said he could not recall the name of the hospital or of any member of its staff he spoke to. He said he knew what the defendant was being treated for but had omitted that information from his own witness statement.
The witness said he did not find the items stolen from the scene on the defendant at the time of arrest. He also said that when the recovered gun which the defendant led officers to was stored, he did not go with the keeper to the police exhibit room.
E. I. Onoja, for the third defendant, adopted the cross-examination of the first and second defendants’ counsel.
Answering Ojonomi Apeh, for the fourth to sixth defendants, the witness confirmed that the fifth defendant denied participating in the robbery, but said the denial was found to be baseless and that investigation showed the fifth defendant was part of the group.
The judge adjourned to 9 December for the continuation of Mr. Apeh’s cross-examination.
The 11 men were arraigned in January on nine counts of criminal conspiracy, armed robbery and murder. All pleaded not guilty and were remanded at the Kuje Correctional Centre, from where they have been standing trial.
They are Shamsu Hassan, Sani Sirajo, Hassan Isah, Abubakar Alkamu, Abdulsalam Saleh, Suleiman Badamasi, Zaharadeen Mohammed, Musa Umar, Mashkur Jamil, Suleiman Sani and Abubakar Usman.
In February, two of Ms Maduagwu’s neighbours at Unique Apartments, Sani Yusuf and Fatou Toborteh, who were themselves robbed that night, testified that they heard a woman screaming, and that they saw Ms Maduagwu with a serious head injury. She was later confirmed dead at hospital. Both said they could not identify any of the defendants because the robbers were masked.
In April, Maxwell Eje, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, told the court how the suspects were arrested and weapons recovered, and said an English double-barrelled gun and an AK-47 were recovered following the confession of a suspect.
In September, Mr. Ishaku told the court that Ms Maduagwu was pushed from a three-storey building by a member of the group, and that one of the robbers shot the security guard.
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